I thought this was about Tom Cruise.
Who the hell is "Cruise"? That title is not the way to present the company.
Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
161–170 of 183 posts
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human drivers are pretty terrible. I'd imagine if it breaks down, then the same breakdown cover everyone has at the moment will kick in.
> Human drivers are pretty terrible. I beg to differ. The average sober human driver has 1 fatal accident in 120-300 million miles traveled, depending on where they live in North America. Given that we are bags of meat and water, have reaction times measured in hundreds of milliseconds, were never designed to operate heavy machinery, and manage to achieve all that on a mere 100 watts, that's pretty amazing.
Where are you getting that data? [1] claims that the rate was 1.27 deaths per billion miles in 2008, and 1.25 in 2016.
What do you consider the threshold for human drivers being good or bad? Even if we could get to 1 death per billion miles (with human drivers), I'd consider that pretty bad.
Regardless, if an autonomous driving system can do better, that's all that really matters. We're not there yet, but it's not inconceivable that we could be before too long.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to think this, and I still think it'll happen in urban centers, but there are pretty big swaths of rural or just low density areas that wouldn't be well served by this, so it'd take a while (a couple decades extra maybe) to get local rideshare hubs going, and in some more remote places it maybe would never happen.
While obviously density improves the efficiency of almost any transportation system I don't understand why driverless vehicles would ever be less efficient than traditional cars. Sure they will initially cost more due to additional sensors and computers there will also be saving from removing unneeded human controls. Lastly accident/fatality rates are several times higher in rural areas so the potential safety gains…
What's that economic phenomenon where a decrease in the cost of something results in an increase in the overall amount spent on it?
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#164One big difference between Cruise and the rest is that the CEO has built a self driving car from scratch. Because of the inherent path dependency in Hybrid systems (i.e. Software written for one car will most certainly not work on other hardware configurations), I believe having technical knowledge in the leadership makes a huge difference in the long run. The Presence of "old world" tech managers is going to hurt an…
What self driving car companies does this out cruise ahead of? (Which companies have CEOs that don't have experience building self driving cars?)
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#165One big difference between Cruise and the rest is that the CEO has built a self driving car from scratch. Because of the inherent path dependency in Hybrid systems (i.e. Software written for one car will most certainly not work on other hardware configurations), I believe having technical knowledge in the leadership makes a huge difference in the long run. The Presence of "old world" tech managers is going to hurt an…
What self driving car companies does this out cruise ahead of? (Which companies have CEOs that don't have experience building self driving cars?)
The Waymo CEO's experience is from Hyundai and a company called True Car.
Uber doesn't lack a CEO without self-driving car experience. It lacks a CEO period.
The Volvo CEO's experience is in sales.
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Waymo (Google) is not that far from level IV. Average U.S. driver has one accident roughly every 165,000 miles and disengagements is not 1:1 with crashing. I suspect drunk drivers would probably be safer handing over control which could make a huge difference. Most interesting is the Disengagements by location. (page 9) https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/946b3502-c959-4e3b... Interstate 0 Freeway 0 Highway 12…
Sounds like you're assuming level 4 merely means parity or better with human error. Lots of problems with that. For instance if it's Google's negligent bug that kills the family of 4 instead of a driver, Google gets sued. Google has much deeper pockets than the driver who would typically declare bankruptcy, effectively capping the damages. No real cap for Google, every time. So that explodes the cost of autonomous ve…
Based on their own reporting, hasn't Waymo been safer than the average driver for a few years now?
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#167Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Medical errors kill on the order of 700 people per day in the US (high error bars on that number though). And yes, insurance is a major cost in the medical field, but even large scale negligent deaths are regularly dealt with by the US legal system. Yes, anyone putting out such a system is going to get sued, but so does every car company that exists today. It's just the cost of doing business and ultimately just get'…
You're correct. The question is what is the cost passed on to consumers. If it is something on the order of the cost of medical malpractice insurance and average settlements, well, wow. That would make AV prohibitively expensive. More likely the bar for level 4 will just be significantly higher than parity with human error, if only for liability reasons.
"In 2010, there were 1.1 fatal crashes per 100 million truck miles" https://www.truckdrivingjobs.com/faq/truck-driving-accidents... Truckers make ~27c/mile.
So, at similar rate to human drivers that's ~24* million dollars per fatal crash in saved wages. Plus presumably higher truck utilization and lower management costs etc. Don't forget the driver is often not at fault and automated trucks should have plenty of footage of accidents to demonstrate who was at fault. So it's a fraction of both fatal and non fatal accidents, with non fatal accidents generally having lower associated costs. Also, most importantly it's only the truck involved in many accidents associated with bad weather and more generally the driver's medical bills etc do not need to be covered if there is no driver.
Further, technology is unlikely to degrade over time so they just need a profitable starting point. Also, if the self drive button cost ~25c / mile there are plenty of times I would hit it.
*Granted, there will be labor costs linked with automated trucks, but a 95% savings seems likely.
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Pittsburgh is a far more challenging driving environment than either San Francisco or Phoenix, with far more diversity of weather and a lot messier infrastructure due to terrain and freeze-thaw cycles and reduced maintenance after population decline— think 20% grade on cobbles after a snowstorm. e.g. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4763879,-80.0106331,3a,75y,2...
Does Uber's autonomous service go to such locations?
Good question— their office is at the end of a crumbling backstreet, at least:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4627591,-79.9701442,3a,75y,3...
Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I don't know if you're in SF - but on the one lane roads, traffic doesn't stop for people turning left at lights. Again, I don't know the legality - but I've seen police and government workers do it as well. Because the streets are made w/ enough space for vehicles to park next to the lanes of traffic - there is enough room to pass on the right in an intersection.
I understand that part. But not the one about the cruise car almost hitting you. So: one lane street, person in front of you turning left, you pass them to the right in the space where there might be street parking which extends into the intersection. During that time, the car trying to turn left is finally able to do so and the car immediately behind it is the cruise car. Cruise-car is now able to go straight and al…
Nope, cruise car was in the other lane turning left. It turned into my lane just after I passed the car turning left and the cruise car made a sudden stop in the wrong (my) lane. Had it continued, it would've collided with my rear wheel - so I'm like 75% sure I wouldn't have been at fault.